Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 5 (Jounouchi VS Insector Haga)

This time it will be a bit smaller than the previous, but the summary might be a bit long.


Plot Summary:

We left off with Marik getting closer to Domino City, so the scene changes in focusing Anzu, Sugoroku (Yugi's grandfather) and Ryou Bakura searching for Yugi and Jounouchi and not having much success, comes the time for lunch, Anzu remembers where Jounouchi might be, Beef Burger.
The scene changes to the location of where Jounouchi is as Anzu suspected, Jounouchi eating with his duel disk still on his arm without considering it might be hurting others around him as he eats, a man who he accidentally snapped in the face called him out, Jounouchi feels offended for being called out of not removing his duel disk and the owner of the Beef Burger called him out as well, Jounouchi listen to him because he has given him free pickles (I don't think it's the only reason, I 'll approach this rude behaviour).
After Jounouchi removes his duel disk and put on the table, a kid was passing by and steals Jounouchi's duel disk, Jounouchi notices straight away, leaves his pay and left the restaurant to go after the kid and quickly catches him as his friends caught up with him.
The kid tells a sob story as he lost a duel, he lost his deck and duel disk, Jounouchi buys the story while the others specially Sugoroku is giving the benefit of doubt, suspicious, Jounouchi is decided to duel against this person, they do have an interesting conversation between Jounouchi and Anzu, sharing a tidbit of the current state of Shizuka, even though the surgery was a success but Shizuka is scared to take off the bandages, Anzu to Jounouchi "reporting" Honda went on some trip, Jounouchi knowing full well Honda, he understood straight away where he went...
A scene transition goes to the kid thief talking with another kid, this other kid reveals to be Insector Haga who orchestrated the whole thing to put one of Haga cards, a parasite card in Jounouchi's deck, with the condition of giving a rare card to the thief kid, unsurprisingly Insector Haga given a "common" card (so he lied), the thief kid calls out and Haga attacks him with a bug killer to his eyes and leaves to prepare himself for the duel...
Jounouchi meets Haga and the duel starts, right at the first turn, Jounouchi got his parasite card and was automatically special summoned due to it's effect and activates it's player field effect, from the start Jounouchi is in a corner, as the duel goes on, there plenty transition scenes between this duel and Honda going to the Hospital to pick up Shizuka followed by Otogi Ryuji and convince Shizuka to go with them to give courage to Jounouchi since Jounouchi is dueling to do the same for her.
The duel ends with Jounouchi's victory.



Key Points:

 

I want to mention this titbit scene which talks about their daily life a little bit, Anzu mentions while blushing a little(it could be from feeling tired from walking searching for Yugi and Jounouchi) and expressing her opinion that Yugi should get a cell phone is interesting, indicating Yugi isn't much for technology unless there is games involved...he needs to reorganize his priorities a little...

Honda not telling he is picking up Shizuka just to surprise Jounouchi and them, another cute titbit from Bakura, he participates in campaigns and write the plots for these tabletop RPGs campaigns, which later Anzu reflects on it as "seems like everybody's drifting apart these days...", it's natural, you're all in 2nd year High School, one wonders what's Yugi future...as profession (Jounouchi for me is kinda easy, it's what he always have been doing as part-time jobs, Anzu - we already know to be a dancer, Honda I suppose I can have a guess it will be something similar to Jounouchi or something else, Bakura might be related to RPGs or game designer of RPGs, Otogi Ryuji is easy because he already works as game designer, Kaiba is electronic gaming engineer and president of KaibaCorp, but Yugi is a real mystery for me because he has so much potential and promise yet he always not thought of his future until recently because of the circumstances regarding the spirit of the pharaoh he is hosting made him think about his own future, but what kind? I have a feeling the end of Dark Side of Dimensions movie will give a glimpse).


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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 4 (Dark Yugi VS Pandora)

This one will be a bit longer than the previous post (a lot of foreshadowing moments, plot focus, points I want to discuss).

Plot Summary:

In the previous post, Dark Yugi had arrived at one of the secret bases of the Rare Hunters Ghouls inside a card store, Pandora The Conjurer challenged Dark Yugi to a duel to test who is the true master of Dark Magician/Black Magician.
Pandora guides Dark Yugi to a duel arena and they start shuffle their own cards and then of each other with some little discussion about how you treat the cards by how you shuffle, Dark Yugi tells Pandora using shotgun shuffle damages the cards, when they put in their positions for the duel, shackles on their feet and a carbide tipped saw blade appears and rolling and advances as you lose life points, if your LP reach 0 then the player who loses the duel has their legs chopped and eventually die if no ambulance comes...
Dark Yugi is deeply affected by this game of death (will be approached in the key points) and the duel starts, it gets more intense, even some unusual events happens, when Pandora activates a spell card affects the whole field (inluding the opponent) is willing to sacrifice his own Dark Magician and other monster card to take away Dark Yugi life points, Dark Yugi could have used on his own Dark Magician, but Dark Yugi's Dark Magician shielded Dark Yugi on his own will, it's an unusual event and as the duel reaches it's end, it comes the debut of an iconic card in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dark Magician Girl/Black Magician Girl leading to victory for Dark Yugi.
Carbide saw blade is getting closer to chop Pandora's legs, Dark Yugi is free from the shackles and gets a puzzle card, Pandora had safeguarded a key copy, he is about to remove from his wrist with the duel disk, then Marik comes to his mind and removes the image of the key and feel of the key in his hand, Yugi takes over of his own body and saves Pandora, Marik introduces himself to Yugi (he is aware of 2 entities) and a very interesting conversation between Marik and Yugi.
After this conversation, Yugi finally reaches a decision...and Marik approaching Domino City on a boat.


Key Points:

 

I was patiently waiting for this chance for this key point to write about, look how Dark Yugi is reacting to this life and death duel, he was someone who mentally scarred others and killed a fugitive from justice (but his life was in danger as well plus the hostages, I'll give legitimate defense, the gun was pointed at him, it was kinda fair) for protection or fear of losing (Kaiba's duel in Duelist Kingdom), when he asks "is this fun for you?" and a little lower in his voice, in the panel hiding his face a little, and asks again in a clearer voice tone "I'm asking you, is it fun? A battle that kills people...", while hiding half of it as in deep thought when asks in the panel, then comes to Dark Yugi saying "Then I'll take you..." as he looks down in deep thoughts "...to the very edge of your life!" to Pandora.
I had to describe this scene in detail, because these panels alone show big character development on Dark Yugi part, the moments when he asks and hides his face and looks down a little, it expresses Dark Yugi may not speak of it or not show his deepest thoughts to the readers but by looking at the early volumes of what he has done to this duel, it reveals duels against Kaiba and Pegasus, specially the information about the millenium items having evil intelligence had a huge impact on him and he feels a lot of guilt and regret because this very duel it is mirrored at him of his shadow games but as he tries maintaining his sense of justice.
Dark Yugi has been realizing and slowly admitting recently since Duelist Kingdom, his sense of justice is flawed and so is his own self but is a big step for him to evolve and expand himself and so is his ethics like his pride evolved into integrity as I explained before in the duel against rare hunter exodia post , he is learning about.his own flaws, but does he hate himself for the things he did in past and had forgiven himself? I don't know, but one thing is clear, recognizing and learning from his mistakes, he tries to be the best of himself and keep his integrity.
I want to feature a post on Tumblr that inspired to write this section like I did about this Dark Yugi/Atem character development tumblr post of this scene.



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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 3 (Battle City Break)

This is a little break from Battle City being more plot focus, I think the summary will be small, it might mean a small post like the previous one, just a bit smaller....

Plot Summary:

We left Jounouchi leaving from his first duel ending with his victory, as Jounouchi leaves the scene, the background changes and focus on other part of Domino City,  players discussing about the antes, Koji "spider" Nagumo comes back claiming the card of his opponent ante isn't enough compensate for his rare card and force his opponent to pay (it's ridiculous), Mokuba appears as steering committee chairman of the tournament to stop the current disagreement and evaluate the situation if is fair or not, Mokuba informs the ante rare value are the same, Koji seeing not going his way he threatens Mokuba that he makes his own rules, then Seto Kaiba shows up...
Seto Kaiba claims is shocked Koji demands so much from ante, then Kaiba rips Koji's ante card and challenges him to a duel and to compensate for ripping his ante card, gives his card case full of rare cards and even gives him a chance to using them to improve his deck, Koji being too confident (forgetting Kaiba might have even rarer cards in his deck being Kaiba), Kaiba shows off his God card, Obelisk leaving the Koji's previous opponent and Koji very shocked.
The scene transitions again to another with a Rare Hunter informing Marik they detected who currently has the Obelisk God card (being Kaiba), so it's open some discussion and revealing informition (and misinformation), Marik reveals he goes personally to Domino City to get the God card himself and ask them to keep Yugi (Dark Yugi busy) with Pandora.
Once again the scene changes in focusing on Yugi and Dark Yugi searching for rare hunters and they have an interesting conversation and got an idea where one of the rare hunters might be, the card game store, they arrive, the door was opened and so they enter and Dark Yugi next opponent reveal himself to Dark Yugi being Pandora and like Yugi, an owner of a Black Magigian/Dark Magician, they discuss a little and Dark Yugi accepting Pandora's challenge.


Keys Points:

Look who is back? Koji "spider" Nagumo, now for anyone who have read the first 7 volumes would recognize him, I forgot to mention him when I had the chance around volume 6 (I'll add more details about the Monster Fight arc in the proper post after I finish the whole manga analysis), I think he was a bit important to Yugi's development and also presenting Yugi's current flaws he is currently trying to overcome.
Even after his Penalty Game with Dark Yugi, he hasn't change much or picking on weaker ones and proves that most of Dark Yugi Penalty games aren't permanent like the others (with one exception to the prisoner which was death), sadly for him he will mess with the wrong person again...and some stupid players still with this "I'll beat you so bad you'll never duel again" as something cool and respect...when it's actually the other way around, good grief...

 

I think is very interesting, Mokuba playing a role as referee of the tournament and he is doing a pretty good job as a neutral party (so cute too :3), it shows good character development because he isn't as vicious as he was before or "cheating" like he did with the capsule monsters and russian roulette, it shows the events of Duelist Kingdom had big effect on him and Yugi & Co was a huge influence on him.

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Wallpapers I've made...

Resolution base Format is 1920x1080

  

 

 

 

If you want see my other works, here: Viajantedemundos wallpapers (worldstraveller)

Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 2 (Battle City Begins - Jounouchi VS Espa Roba)

This will be again a post with the same length as the previous one, focusing on key details of the duel, let's get on the summary plot of the post...

Plot Summary:

We left off Jounouchi asking Dark Yugi to hold his Red Eyes Black Dragon to take as opportunities to get strong enough to get it back and to duel against Dark Yugi, a learning experience, Dark Yugi gladly accepts the request and challenge.
Jounouchi and Dark Yugi goes separate ways to find their next opponents, it focus on Jounouchi seeing a crowd of duelists watching a duel between Dino Ryuzaki and Esper Roba, victory going to Esper Roba, Jounouchi challenges Esper Roba.
Esper Roba accepts his challenge and the duel starts, Jounouchi makes a small mistake on forgetting Battle City Tournament requires super expert rules (sacrificing a lower level monster to summon a high level monster - level 5 and over), Roba claims having psychic powers and be able to get what cards Jounouchi has, the duel comes to for a real start.
In the process of the duel, Jounouchi discovers Esper Roba is actually a fake psychic on his own by noticing a small mistake from his opponent or "his psychic powers", the readers get to know who are the "psychic powers" being Esper Roba little brothers... as the duel goes on, during the duel reveals Jounouchi's deck is a Gamble deck, in other words, totally relies mostly on luck.
The duel ends with the victory on Jounouchi's side, we get Esper Roba reaction to his defeat showing some more of his characterization and an interesting discussion between the two players and ending with a strong message.


Key points:

 

Jounouchi sees as steps in becoming a true duelist, according to Jounouchi's steps in becoming a "true duelist", I'll interpret it as becoming active in duelists community, taking initiative by challenging those who are a duelist  in front of you and seem stronger than him, steps in becoming a better and become a more experienced player, Jounouchi is already starting building his own definition of "true duelist", since each individual is different, of course will be different it's definition, Jounouchi own way starts shaping up from here...

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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 1 (Battle City Begins - Dark Yugi VS Rare Hunter Exodia Deck)

We are finally on volumes 18-19 and licensed version in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist vol.11-12, starting Battle City story arc, this is gonna be a long ride, because this story arc is huge, the posts will be smaller for a awhile until comes the most important duels.

Plot Summary:

We left off on Jounouchi have his Red Eyes Black Dragon stolen by rare hunters before the day of the tournament, the next day comes starting off with Dark Yugi and Yugi have been building their deck all night, they talk a little before going to the center of Domino City for the the rules to be explained, even Sugoroku Mutou closes his Kame Game Shop to watch the tournament.
Dark Yugi is waiting at meeting place for the rules of the tournament to be revealed and wondering where is Jounouchi since he doesn't seem to be in sight and encounters Mai, she was wondering the same thing about Jounouchi.
Kaiba suddenly appears in all TVs of the city, including an airship flying around with a plasma tv (this guy sure loves to go big), explains the rules of the tournament and informs Kaiba himself will play in the same conditions as them, once finished the tournament begins.
 Jounouchi suddenly appears approaching a man in a coffee shop reading in his portable pc, challenging him and revealing he is a rare hunter as will get back his Red-Eyes, the man refuses, Dark Yugi is shocked by this and intervenes being himself to challenge him and duel against the rare hunter.
The duel starts, Jounouchi tries to warn of his exodia deck to Dark Yugi, but he reveals some of his principles, I'll talk about in the key points, during the first two turns, Dark Yugi finds strange the rare hunter playing style by putting only defensive monsters, not attacking and making it draw more cards, in 3 turns Dark Yugi figure out his strategy of the rare hunter exodia deck, in 2 turns, Dark Yugi defeats the rare hunter and his deck technically, this duel was very small, Dark Yugi finished him very quickly, the main villain named Marik introduces himself through mind control of this rare hunter he just defeated.
Dark Yugi is about to give it back and Jounouchi refuses and tells him his reasons (it will approached in the key points), so to a point when gets Red-Eyes back by dueling against Dark Yugi.



Key Points:

I really like these two panels, specially when he mentions the "those two boys", remember he saw Jounouchi leaving, so he isn't referring to Jounouchi and Yugi but it was Yugi and Dark Yugi, making it more obvious that he is more aware than he is letting on, the way mentions them, he sees Dark Yugi as his grandson as well, to him it's like having two grandsons, it's very cute.

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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.16-17 Part 3 (Prologue of Battle City)

This one might be just as long as the previous one, it's when the plot starts to move at full charge, there is important events regarding characters and their relationships and development.

Plot Summary:

In the last post I left when Jounouchi just saved Yugi from the fire, after this event Yugi stays in the hospital to be treated and healed while Jounouchi had minor injuries so he doesn't need to sleep in the hospital, Yugi is playing Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards with Jounouchi, Anzu feels relieved Yugi survived the fire and feels grateful for Jounouchi being able to save him, Yugi and friends share their thoughts for Yugi finishing the puzzle so quick, leaving Anzu in deep reflection about the situation regarding Yugi and Dark Yugi and the recent info revealed by Pegasus, an old man who is Yugi's hospital room-mate calls him out about an article on the newspaper getting the attention from Yugi, an egyptian woman who's from the Egypt government with an millenium item quickly realized by Yugi and Ryou Bakura, millenium tauk, who is holding an Egypt antiquities exhibit in Domino Museum by name of Ishizu Ishtarl.
 By night time, changes into Kaiba arriving at Domino Museum to meet up with Ishizu, Ishizu  introduces herself and summarizes her job, Kaiba tells her he is only interested in creating gaming technology and not in history, Ishizu reveals the origin of Duel Monsters in a ancient egyptian palette and same kind of palette showing figures of what looks like Yugi wearing the puzzle with Dark/Black Magician and Kaiba with Blue Eyes White Dragon, Kaiba is shocked and in denial for a while, also reveals Pegasus created 3 Egyptian God cards, one of a kind each, the most powerful cards in Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards were sealed in the valley of the kings for being too powerful, Ishizu informs him 2 cards were stolen by Rare Hunters Ghouls, a group that collect rare cards and sell in the black market, she gives to Kaiba the only one she was able to save from this group, "Obelisk, The Tormentor" and claims she trusts Kaiba, slightly suggests him to host a tournament to attract this group in getting the missing 2 cards...
The next day at the rooftop of Domino Hospital, watching the view while waiting for his friends to pick him up and talking to Dark Yugi, Yugi talks about what Yami Bakura and asks him if Dark Yugi knows anything about it and wonders to him if he is a king, Dark Yugi replies he doesn't know, he just knows exists in Yugi through the puzzle, they have an emotional moment and Yugi tries to dodge the subject saying he wants to leave the hospital early, Dark Yugi makes notice to Yugi their friends arrived early as well as they arrive at the hospital.
The scene transitions to Kaiba testing the new version of the duel disk and the Egyptian God card and challenges the deck used in Duelist Kingdom...
The week passes with Dark Yugi questioning his existence to Sunday, Yugi dressing himself for Anzu, trying to follow Dark Yugi's goth-punk fashion sense so  he could make Dark Yugi take over, setting a "date" with Anzu because Yugi has been sensing Dark Yugi brooding...Anzu is feeling quite nervous for this "date", Dark Yugi arrives, Anzu jolts and blushes, they start the "date", Anzu and Dark Yugi share thoughts at some parts during the time spent and Dark Yugi confesses what is truly going on with him and says he knows where he wants and needs to go, the Domino Museum to see their exhibit, there they discover Dark Yugi is actually a soul of a pharaoh sealed in the millenium puzzle and they meet Ishizu Ishtarl, revealing some bits what is needed for him to restore his memories and future that soon she will meet an enemy with the last millenium item, they exit the museum, Dark Yugi asks Anzu to not talk about what they discover at the museum with Yugi.
Dark Yugi and Anzu still in front of the museum, Dark Yugi realizes they're surrounded by duelists, they find Mai, greet each other, both sharing some info, Kaiba appears to announce that he is hosting a Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards tournament and informs the rules and conditions of the tournament.
Next day, Yugi and Anzu reveals about the tournament to Jounouchi and the others, after school they go to a card game store, Yugi has the highest level in skill so he gets a duel disk for free, while Jounouchi is level 2, you can only be over level 5 to enter, revealing Kaiba is selecting his contestants, the store owner notices Jounouchi has an ultra rare card (Red Eyes Black Dragon), the store owner suspiciously hacked and put Jounouchi on Level 5, after they leave the store to Yugi's house to discuss about Jounouchi's deck, the store owner calls the rare hunters.
When Jounouchi leaves Yugi's house is already at night, as Jounouchi walks by an alley to go home, he meets rare hunters and one of them challenges him to a duel and he loses and his Red Eyes Black Dragon by a rare hunter who owned an "Exodia, The Forbiden One" completed, the tournament still hadn't started, so it was an unofficial duel for the act of putting the rule of ante...

Key Points:

 

In this scene Anzu is feeling relieved, I think it was more towards Yugi, after all Yugi is her childhood friend, like I said, childhood friends usually gets special treatment, also there is her romantic feelings developing slowly for Yugi, she expresses gratitude to Jounouchi in her own way but her comment Jounouchi being really thick-skinned rings true figuratively and physically (pffft), physically is obvious due to his delinquent and harsh background and being very athletic, on a metaphorical side of it, even though when others (specially Kaiba) taunts (except Yugi) Jounouchi, he may be easily provoked by Kaiba but isn't easy to get him feeling down, even though his fake confidence was crushed by Kaiba before but he gradually got up on his own, now he is not as easily and strongly affected by Kaiba, he may get angered but don't act on it, holds back as well.

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